Gren hurried down the wide corridor, his hooves clicking against the cold stone tiles in a frantic staccato rhythm that matched his agitated state of mind. “Who installs stone tiles on a naval flagship? […]

  For Rosalyn   June 3, 2072   She woke. In the flow of seconds, she suppressed a cry of dismay, of terror, of loneliness. Elisabeth was three years old. She was in her bed, […]

    “What price would you pay to fix your greatest mistake?” The question hung in the air between us, the weight of it at odds with the situation we found ourselves in. I looked […]

       “Friend, what is your opinion of Emperor Justinian’s new reprobate re-education program?” “Reprobate I understand; re-education I understand; but what is this thing called an opinion?” (An ancient witticism, attributed to an […]

The comm-pad on the table between them chimed, a new notification scrolling across its otherwise dark screen. Ya’teng picked it up, a pained look spreading across his face before he slammed the device down in […]

  And so, in these latter days, you come here to our mines. You, the first children of creation, the children of the sun. The bright ones. The mirror-shiny helms you wear mean we could […]

  The universe is a big place. Insanely big, really. We all know it, intellectually at least, if perhaps not with the same bone-deep certainty with which we know those things that we can see, […]

  The lights came up gently in Gordon’s sleeping pod. The bed was tiny but sufficient to fit his six-foot frame in extraordinary comfort. Like everything surrounding him, it had been designed with exquisite efficiency […]

After nine incident reports and working well beyond the standard close of business, Trudy Coleman was ready to jettison the day job. With rapid fire mouse clicks she slayed the tunnel of apps and windows that were her […]

  Anxiety wormed its way through the Gardener’s mind after the seeds began using tools. It took time for seeds to germinate. There were moments when the Gardener worried the Omnidem had miscalculated either the double system’s […]

Miranda Ayodele glowered at the not-quite-human being slumped on the rear bench of her rover. “I should have left you to die.” Wide, dark eyes with cybernetic irises gazed back. Slender fingers lowered the rover’s […]

Believe it or not, this is the very first 850 word story of something like the ten I wrote for NATURE maybe at least a decade ago and now with AI they can really do […]

No, uh, kidding, I really did my scientific homework and wrote this story, and NATURE really did publish it. Your Majesty, members of the Swedish Academy, fellow Nobel Laureates, Ladies, Gentlemen, and others, including former […]

David Brin’s bold novel EXISTENCE explores the ultimate question: Billions of planets may be ripe for life, even intelligence. So where is Everybody? Do civilizations make the same fatal mistakes, over and over? Might we […]